| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Restaurants |
| Founded | In 1972 in Irvine, California |
| Headquarters | Irvine, California |
| Key people | J. Russell Philips, President and CEO Sean McCarthy, Chief Financial Officer |
| Products | Whole Bean Coffee Food Beverages Merchandise |
| Revenue | $52.5 mill. (FY2004 net) ($14.6 mill) |
| Employees | 815 as of Feb. 25, 2005 |
| Parent | Green Mountain Coffee Roasters |
| Subsidiaries | Diedrich Coffee, Inc Gloria Jean's Coffees Coffee People |
| Website | Diedrich.com |
Diedrich Coffee is a coffee company based in Irvine, CA. Its first coffee house in Orange County, CA was opened in 1983. It owns the American mall-based stores for Gloria Jean's Coffees. In Oregon, it previously ran Coffee People until nearly every location was bought and closed or converted into a Starbucks (Diedrich retained ownership of the Coffee People locations inside the Portland International Airport.)[1]
The history of the company started with Charlotte Diedrich inheriting a coffee plantation in Costa Rica in 1916. Her son, Carl Diedrich joined the business in 1946 and purchased a coffee plantation in Antigua, Guatemala in 1966. The first coffeehouse, a roastery, opened in Newport Beach in 1972.
Diedrich Coffee, a neighborhood coffeehouse, was founded by Martin Diedrich in 1983. He took over the retail, roasting and importing facets of the family business from retiring Carl. In September 1996, Diedrich Coffee went public.
The company bought up Coffee People, a company that included Gloria Jean's Coffees, in July 1999.[2][3] In June 2004, Martin Diedrich resigned his position at Diedrich Coffee.
In September 2006, Diedrich Coffee announced its plans to close its company-owned retail stores, 40 of which were sold to rival Starbucks and reopened under that brand. Franchisee-owned stores remained unchanged. The company continued as a roaster and wholesaler of coffee beans.[4] However, a few independently owned and operated Diedrich locations remained open in California and Texas. On November 3, 2009, California-based Peet's Coffee announced that it was buying Diedrich.[5]
On December 8, 2009, Vermont-based Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. trumped the offer from Peet's Coffee and agreed to buy Diedrich for $290 million.[6]